James Cameron has been in pre-production on his Avatar sequels for years! It's been so long, and with the release dates continually being pushed back, it seemed like the movies were never going to happen. Well, this week Avatar 2 officially starts shooting.

The film will feature the return of Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, Matt Gerald, Sigourney Weaver, and Stephen Lang, who will be back as the main villain in all four Avatar sequels. When previously talking about that, Cameron said:

“The interesting conceit of the ‘Avatar’ sequels is it’s pretty much the same characters. There are new characters and a lot of new settings and creatures, so I’m taking characters you know and putting them in unfamiliar places and moving them on this greater journey. But it’s not a whole bunch of new characters every time. There’s not a new villain every time, which is interesting. Same guy. Same motherf*cker through all four movies. He is so good and he just gets better. I know Stephen Lang is gonna knock this out of the park.”

We all know that Cameron has got some epic ground-breaking plans for these Avatar sequels. I'm actually kind of excited to see what he ends up creating for the fans.

The current release dates for the upcoming sequels are as follows: Avatar 2 will hit theaters on December 18, 2020, Avatar 3 will be released on December 17, 2021, Avatar 4 opens on December 20, 2024, andAvatar 5is scheduled to be released on December 19, 2025.

The first film, which was released in 2009, still holds the record for the highest grossing movie of all time with over 2.7 billion in worldwide box office grosses. Do you think this first sequel will break that? Are you excited about the upcoming Avatar sequels?

Joey Paur — Co-Founder / Editor of GeekTyrant.com, and if you haven't noticed I write… a lot. Movies are my passion and I live and breathe all things geek. This site is part of my life's work, it's a part of me. I love what I do, and I enjoy sharing everything I can with you when it comes to movies and geekery. In my spare time I travel to the netherworlds to battle demons. @JoeyPaur | joeypaur@geektyrant.com